


you'll be human again

by crookedverite



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: 5+1 Things, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 18:14:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12114393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedverite/pseuds/crookedverite
Summary: They have a whole language in the way they say each other’s names.





	you'll be human again

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Human" by Aquilo.

1

Ronan Lynch was not human.

He was a collection of names given to him by other humans—a raven, a snake, a shark, a Greywaren. To them, he was an animal that was seconds away from tearing through its cage, he was a box that was letters away from spelling out a curse. 

Some days, when he woke up after a particularly shitty sleep where the only things he brought back were handfuls of dirt or bloodstained blue petals, Henry Cheng would say “Ronan,” and he meant: _Hey come on I didn’t mean it I was joking can you let me go now_. Gansey would say “Ronan,” and he meant: _Control yourself please_. Declan would say “Ronan,” and he meant: _Get back on your leash and stay down_. 

He couldn’t really blame them. Ronan was the maker of dream things and some of his dream things had been monsters. It wasn’t exactly the easiest revelation to come to terms with, even after all the months that had passed. 

“Are you just going to stand out here and stare at your car all night?”

Adam Parrish was not human, either. Not exactly. He was human only in the ways that humans were beautiful: the quiet intention in his footsteps as he stood beside Ronan on the Barns porch, the way he rubbed his hands together to wipe away the misty chill in the air, the exaggerated hunch of his shoulders and the curious fold between his eyebrows when he glanced at him. Adam was a magician, but Ronan always thought he was magical _because_ of all these genuine, ordinary, hesitant, humanlike things—not despite them. 

He trained his eyes on the BMW and asked, “How was it?” 

“How was what?” Adam’s vowels stretched, Ronan’s heart sighed. 

Ronan turned to him and stared. 

“I kept my expectations low,” Adam said after a pause. “Mom sounded like she wants to keep tabs on me, in college. But they won’t come.”

“Good,” he replied through his teeth. He turned back to the fields.

“Ronan.”

Ronan Lynch was not human, except for the thing in his chest that clattered and ached when this magician stood too close. Adam stepped down on the first porch step and turned to him, blocking the BMW from his view. 

“Better not find a single scratch on her,” Ronan said. His voice was low and wavering, because Adam’s nose was almost brushing his jaw and, well, he was getting distracted. “Or you’re screwed, Parrish.” 

A firefly flew past them and hovered over Adam’s frayed t-shirt. As soon as it landed on his shoulder, the chilly air around them warmed like a fireplace. 

This isn’t a monster, Ronan wanted to say. This is something good.

Adam whispered, “Ronan,” and he meant: _I know_. 

2

“It’s hot as shit in here.”

Adam agreed. Ronan had been lounging in the garage for a while now, sitting atop a wood table next to the car Adam was trying to diagnose. His black muscle tee was off and the pale skin glistened with sweat underneath. Adam wished he could do the same, but grease was always such a chore to wash off in the shower and he wasn’t in the mood to add an extra digit to his water bill. Not now, not when every cent under his name had to go to tuition for the upcoming year.

“Can’t you dream up a floating fan to follow you around?” Adam asked, waving a grease-stained cloth at him. 

“God, Parrish. You know what? Maybe I will.” He shoved the contents of the table to the side and lay down on his stomach. “Any other requests before I go under, Your Shittiness?”

Adam snorted. “Whatever.”

He went over to Ronan after a while, when the muscles along his tattoo had relaxed. He wiped his hands furiously on the cloth and set it down. They had had many days and nights like this, where Ronan would sleep and Adam would stay awake just to watch his breathing slow, the sharp lines in his face relax, the downturned curl of his lips return to a more peaceful shape. It was a terrible idea considering how he was nodding off during his jobs even more now, but Adam had quickly realized that the hours they spent like this were much more precious and rare than the hours spent in this garage or at the factory clawing for a paycheck for his tuition deadline. Much quieter, much more calming, much more breathtaking.

Adam ran his cleaned fingers along Ronan’s tattoo, following the wilting leaves and curling feathers. The skin was jarringly soft under his calloused hands. He wondered how Ronan could even hold them the way he did, close to his lips or tucked in the pocket of his expensive hoodie or pressed against a pillow in the dark. Adam always watched this, too, with his greedy eyes.

His stomach growled. Adam yanked his fingers away and went back to work. The tuition deadline was unbearably close. 

Later, when he was on the creeper underneath the car, something nudged his foot. He rolled out and found Ronan crouched before him with a grease stained bag in his hands.

“Fans out of stock?” asked Adam.

“Don’t be an asshole.” He shoved the bag to him. Adam stared as the smell of oil and ketchup fought with his body.

“Where’d you get that from?”

“Don’t be an _idiot_.” Ronan grinned. “Also, dream burgers don’t cost anything. No labor exploitation or whatever. You’re in the clear.”

“ _Ronan_.”

They stared at each other. Ronan won. Adam took the bag. 

3

“Parrish,” Ronan snapped. “You’re supposed to apply it twice _daily_.”

He watched Adam wince as he wiped the smear of blood off his hands. “I _did_. There was just a lot heavier equipment to move today.”

His blistering hands stayed red. There was probably a cut somewhere in there that Adam was also purposefully hiding from Ronan’s sight. In fact, it was precisely because of the way Adam hid it that Ronan knew it was there. He ducked into Adam’s tiny bathroom and returned with a dampened washcloth. 

When Ronan saw Adam’s face, he faltered. The boy was wiping furiously at his hands now, like he couldn’t wait to get the stains off. Adam’s blue eyes were glassy and clouded with desperation when they met his. 

“It’s—this is mine, right?” Adam’s words shook. “I didn’t—”

“No.” Ronan crossed the room and yanked Adam’s hands towards him. “Adam. See? I’m fine.”

Adam’s eyes were glued to the blood. “Tie them just in case.”

“Adam,” Ronan said quietly. He wrapped his hands around Adam’s wrists and held them steady. “It’s not in your head anymore. The fucker is dead. It’s _dead_.”

When he didn’t answer, Ronan led him to the bed and sat him down. He knelt in front of him with the washcloth and, taking both of Adam’s hands in his, dabbed at the bleeding dryness. As he worked, Adam’s eyes went from dazed to confused to understood. The craze in his expression softened.

“Shit,” he mumbled. “God.”

“Shut up,” Ronan said. “You’re okay.”

“This is so screwed up. How can you even want to be around this?”

Ronan pressed his mouth to the back of Adam’s fingers. Despite the washcloth, they smelled like metal and chemicals and sweat. He closed his eyes. “ _Miseria fortes viros_ , Adam.” 

When he said “Adam,” it meant: _How can I not want to?_

4

Ronan’s new favorite pastimes were these: dreaming, kissing Adam, fighting, street racing, and being kissed by Adam.

Blue gave him a knowing look and a smirk when she came over to their table. “You two have been busy.”

She was eyeing the marks on Ronan’s pale neck. Which wasn’t really fair, since they hid so much better on Adam’s tan-brown skin. Ronan threw an arm around him and sneered, “Move along, Sargent.”

Her smirk grew and she sent down a glass. “Here’s the _extra-large_ iced tea you asked for.”

Gansey reached across the table for Blue’s hand. “Jane. Dear Jane. Is there enough time to order another deep dish?”

“We’re closing in ten minutes!”

He laced their fingers together. “I know, I know. Listen, I’ll—”

“Please, Blue,” Adam interrupted before Gansey could offer up an absurd amount of money to make up for it. “He’ll take it to go.”

Ronan was getting bored. When Blue left with the order and Gansey followed her to the counter, he turned to Adam. 

“I can’t finish all of this,” he said.

Adam narrowed his eyes. “Why did you order it, then?”

Ronan shrugged. Only it was a lopsided shrug, because he didn’t want to pull away from Adam’s shoulders. “Thought I’d be thirstier.”

“Oh, come on.” He saw the smirk on Ronan’s face. “Oh. _Ronan_.”

They both left ten minutes before Nino’s closed. In the black shadows behind the building, Ronan busied himself with Adam’s mouth and Adam busied himself with Ronan’s tattoo-covered skin. He tasted Ronan’s name in every way possible: slow and dragged out, quipped and breathless, half-lost in a laugh, echoed again and again until it synced with Ronan’s pounding heart. 

5

Adam Parrish was becoming human. 

His eyes were human eyes, his hands were human hands. Cabeswater was a phantom limb in the thing that was Adam Parrish, but the ley line still hummed through him like an electric current. So he was becoming, always. A fixed state of impermanence. Never actually reaching a point where he would be lulled to sleep again. 

He was becoming human, and so he went to college. He was almost curious to see if it would make the change faster. Or if he would find himself pulling back, sinking into Cabeswater’s echoes, the rustle of leaves against his skin, and refuse to come back out. 

“Pick up the pace, Parrish,” Ronan called from the BMW. Adam lugged a suitcase down the steps of St. Agnes and rolled it towards him. He went to stand before Ronan, who was leaning against the driver side door with his arms crossed. 

“You could’ve helped,” Adam pointed out.

“No. I could not,” Ronan replied. He pointed to the backseat. “This dicktwat’s been throwing a tantrum about you leaving.” 

Opal’s ghost-white head appeared behind the glass. “Watch out,” she wailed. Ronan banged a fist on the roof twice, and she quietened.

“I’ll come back,” Adam told her, even though she had already moved to the other side of the car. Ronan chewed at his leather bands and looked away.

This, too, made Adam feel more human. He hooked a finger on one of the bands and pulled them away from Ronan’s mouth. “I said I’ll come back.”

“I heard you the first time.”

“How many times do I have to say it before you believe me?”

He feigned a thoughtful look. “None. Zero. Just stop fucking talking altogether, actually.” The blue in his eyes did not go with the ice in his voice.

“Okay.” Adam wrapped his fingers around the back of Ronan’s neck. He buried his nose underneath Ronan’s pale jawline. “My home is here. You should know better.”

His arms were tight around Adam. “I said stop talking. You’re such an idiot.” 

“Ronan.”

When he said “Ronan,” it meant: _Only when it comes to you_.

+1

Ronan was always the slowest Lynch brother to thaw. But he did, eventually. And he realized this:

He was human in the way he brought Matthew to life. He was human in the way he messed up Blue’s hair after she had just got it right in a bun. He was human in the way he actually managed to check his phone for texts from Adam. He was human in the way he dreamt hummingbirds with metal armor and fireflies that followed people around like guards. He was human in the way his blood sang when Adam called. He was human in the way he loved. 

When Adam came home, he realized this in him, too. They were becoming closer together, two ley lines intersecting, becoming one, a magical, pulsating thing.

“Miss me?” Adam asked. His mouth was in Ronan’s favorite place: the crook where his shoulder met his neck.

“Not one bit, Parrish.”

“Asshole. You forgot my name already.”

This was something good. They had made this good, together.

“Adam,” Ronan said, and his heart was human, and he meant: _Adam, Adam, Adam_.


End file.
